She is for millions of thickly muscled, lumbering mountains of men who should by all rights not give it a second thought the single most frightening creature in the world. She is a woman who dares to suggest—and then goes about proving—that women are equal to men. At the very least, they are equal; in many respects they are superior. Everything that one wants to know about the collective writings of Sarah Grand are easily gleaned from reading just one defining and iconic entry in that body of work: “The New Aspect of the Woman Question.”
Before the first two paragraphs are completed, Grand has revealed herself a capacity for doing something which even today drives a certain kind of man insane. She demonstrates a snarky sense of humor that subjugates men to women with all the cleverness and construction of language as the snarkiest of men put down women. And since most men have not proven themselves to be particularly clever when it comes to putting down women, this naturally reveals a superiority which creates the feelings anger capable of simmering to a boiling rage among the most chauvinistic of males. Try to imagine how men living at time before women were allowed to vote, before women routinely held jobs, before women were elected to high offices around the world and before women decided that their bodies were no longer playthings to be made available to any man in position of power over them might have reacted to a line like directed toward then like “We must look upon man’s mistakes, however, with some leniency, because we are not blameless in the matter ourselves.”
This perspective encapsulates not the attitude which Grand adopts in novels like Ideala, The Beth Book and The Heavenly Twins. That last one occupied a place in Mark Twain’s personal library and its margins are filled with vicious critical notes that attack Grand from a place of personal vituperation as well as literary. Such is the end result of adopting the worst possible attitude toward men. Not of anger, not one of superiority, not one of fear certainly, and not one of submission. The worst attitude women can adopt toward men—one which Grand realized and used to construct a successful career—is dismissal. Her assertion to her mostly female readers to look with leniency upon man’s mistakes adopts the air of supremacy and if she had ended the sentence there that would be one thing. But she does not and it that last part which wriggles its way into not just Mark Twain but millions upon millions since, including now. “We are not blameless in this matter ourselves.” Why would that be so much more worse—so much eminently “feminist” in the worst possible meaning of the word in the world of chauvinistic patriarchy—than the expression of superiority expressed in showing leniency to man’s mistakes?
Because taking on part of the blame stinks of contempt and being patronizing and, the worst sin of all, of women being condescending toward men. Toward men! Imagine how those men back in 1894 when the essay was originally published must have responded to a woman—in print—speaking with condescension toward men about how they are not entirely to blame for their failings.
Or just listen to certain talk radio personalities or watch certain primetime 24-hour hour news channel hosts today.
